Cobalt grabs high marks in quality, productivity, buzz

During one week in June, there was good news on three different fronts about the Lordstown-built Chevrolet Cobalt. The car got good marks on quality, on productivity and on appeal to its target market.
That's quite a showing, and it speaks well of the GM work force and management standing behind Cobalt.
The prestigious J.D. Power and Associates Quality Survey released in the middle of last week, showed the Cobalt ranked fifth among 18 compact cars in quality, based on complaints voiced by recent buyers, who were asked 217 questions about owner satisfaction.
The Cobalt showed a strong improvement in the survey over the previous year, when the model was new. That would be expected, except that the survey was changed this year, nearly doubling the number of questions asked, thereby giving people being surveyed more opportunities to complain than the year before.
The Cobalt ranked fifth against tough competition. Among those getting better marks were the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla, which have historically done well in quality polls. Narrowing the gap against those competitors is important and impressive.
Better and faster
A few days before the quality ratings were announced, the Lordstown plant scored well in another important comparison. The Harbour Report found that productivity at Lordstown had increased by 19 percent in 2005.
The plant needed 21.68 work hours per car produced, down from 26.74 the year before, according to the report by Harbour Consulting in Troy, Mich. The Cobalt was introduced in 2004, which would explain the higher production numbers for that year. But it is impressive that by 2005, the plant had already cut its man-hour numbers to 21.68, just slightly higher than the 21.38 productivity number for 2003, when the plant was in its eighth year of producing the third and final generation of the Chevrolet Cavalier and Pontiac Sunfire.
The last piece of good news came from a demographics survey by AutoVibes, in conjunction with Harris Interactive and the Kelley Blue Book. The Cobalt was cited as the model with the most buzz among Generation Y, people born between 1977 and 1986. That is an important demographic for a corporation seeking to build loyalty with the next generation of car buyers.
The AutoVibes survey provides an interesting look into what appeals to the buying public as it ages. The top-ranked model by Generation X (1965-1976) was the Hummer H3. Baby boomers (1946-1964) were attracted to the Dodge Charger and pre-boomers (1945 and earlier) are talking about the Ford Five Hundred.
The people who build and sell the Cobalt have every reason to be pleased with their placement.